the victorian naturalist. 175 



Note on the Occurrence of Marsupial Remains in the 

 Sand-dunes of Torquay. — Whilst searching amongst the sand- 

 dunes between Spring Creek and Bird Rock, some short while 

 ago, some bones of marsupials came to light Amongst these 

 remains were numerous bones of the common rabbit, and the 

 left mandibular ramus of a Gunn's Bandicoot, Perameles gunnii. 

 This latter showed by its condition and association with the 

 rabbit bones near the surface, that no great period had elapsed 

 since it was covered by the sand. The species is still to be 

 found in the coastal districts of Victoria. The remainder of the 

 bones are all referable to the common Wombat, Phascolomys 

 mitchelli. They represent the greater part of the trunk and 

 limb bones Some of the vertebral bones are cemented in a 

 continuous series by the incrusting dune sand. The surface of 

 these bones shows a large amount of corrosion, and this, together 

 with their partial calcareous incrustation, would lead one to 

 conclude that these remains are probably contemporaneous with 

 the weird incrusted fossil tree-stems which are so abundant on 

 this part of the coast. — F. Chapman, A.L.S. 



The Eves of Animals. — Some very interesting statements 

 were made at a lecture recently delivered in London before the 

 Institute of Ophthalmic Opticians by Dr. G. Lindsay-Johnson. 

 The lecturer said that he had been induced to take up the study 

 of the eyes of animals on account of the conflicting statements in 

 text-books as to the existence of the macula lutea in animals. 

 To settle the point he examined the eyes of the monkeys and 

 other animals at Jamrach's menagerie, and had not gone very far 

 in his studies before he realized that the eye of every animal is a 

 kind of trade mark, so distinct that, as is now known, the order, 

 genus, and family of any animal can be told by examining its 

 eye. This discovery added a method of identification to those 

 already known, and, moreover, applies equally to birds, fishes, 

 and mammals. He found by ophthalmoscopic examination that 

 certain animals had been wrongly classified — the rodents, for 

 instance — and on communicating with Haeckel of Jena his con- 

 clusions were confirmed from totally different sources. Another 

 curious discovery was that only man and monkeys had parallel 

 vision, and as animals descend in the usual scale of arrangement 

 the outward squint of the eye increases. Tiic lecturer said that 

 his researches had confirmed the truth of the theory of evolution, 

 one singular fact being the great similarity of the fundus of the 

 eye in a Nubian youth and in a chimpanzee. He considered 

 reptiles the ancestors of the mammals, and hence of the human 

 race, while rodents are the lowest known type of all the families 

 of mammals. — Condensed from a report in the Chemist and 

 Druggist (London), 14th October, 1905. 



